Dubstepforum.com

This is something I've been thinking about recently.
Especially when I talk to other producers, and we talk about "boundaries" and undefining them in dubstep, to me this is one of the most important boundaries to overcome that has really allowed me to explore sounds in directions that I wouldn't otherwise concieve, further undefining my "process" in the studio so that the shit that I come up with is creative and pushing my own personal boundries constantly.

Someone brought up the concept of top down vs bottom up at school in a presentation on nano technology. In top down, you build a machine that builds another smaller machine that builds another smaller until you're at the nano level. In bottom up you manipulate things at the atomic level until you've built that which you have intended.

I'm going to change those models a bit tho. We'll say top down is where you have an idea of where you want to end up, and you go through the processes to get your original idea as best represented as possible.

We usually do this on a micro scale when we're making music. We beat box some sounds and then try to represent them or we just "hear" where things should go.

I've started thinking about the alternative to that, and how to get outside of those usual processes. That is, moving "atoms" around until a machine is built. Hear what I"m saying? There is an alternative. Just jostle shit around until it sounds like you're getting closer to the machine that you're ultimately hoping to end up with. Things start to gel, and you communicate with the piece - certainly you have inklings as to where things should sort of be located, but do it pretty randomly and without an idea of where you want to be as much as is possible, so that if while jostling around a piece it gells somewhere unexpected, then stick with it.

Remember both processes are to end up as the same thing - a good piece of music. They're just two different approaches to the same end. I hope that made some sort of sense! it does to me, and I've had some pleasing results (well, pleasing to me at the very least )

As some ideas take form, then you've got a foundation of incredibly fresh ideas, which you otherwise would not have come up with from which to build things as you normally would.

I think we all do this naturally a bit. It's always a bit of both. I don't know. just a crazy psychedelic rant for you!

interesting theories and ideas there, decklyn. I find, that i tend to not have a specific idea in mind when i start a track. I start with drums, and get them where i like them, and then i let the track make itself, based on what i think should go where... at the risk of sounding premadonna, the track comes to me as im working on it.

(it doesnt, by any means, mean that all my tracks are "good"!)

decklyn wrote:I don't know. just a crazy psychedelic rant for you!

I'm diggin' this guy!

Decklyn, if you're ever in LA holla at me... we'll make some PsychedelaStep

tenbucc2 wrote:

decklyn wrote:I don't know. just a crazy psychedelic rant for you!

I'm diggin' this guy!

Decklyn, if you're ever in LA holla at me... we'll make some PsychedelaStep

werd!

Dont' we often do both simultaneously? For myself at least, I start out with some ideas, some beats and basslines and whatever, but along the way, a bunch of possibly-random, or at least unforseeable, things happen.

Those things either sound good or not, and if they do, I go with them.

Thus the final product is a mix of those elements that are premeditated and those that are unexpected.

I do think the randomness is very interesting, and I need to learn how to incorporate it more quickly.

Nice rant, one day soon I'll write down my Theory of Quantum Music

subframe wrote:Dont' we often do both simultaneously? For myself at least, I start out with some ideas, some beats and basslines and whatever, but along the way, a bunch of possibly-random, or at least unforseeable, things happen.

Those things either sound good or not, and if they do, I go with them.

Thus the final product is a mix of those elements that are premeditated and those that are unexpected.

I do think the randomness is very interesting, and I need to learn how to incorporate it more quickly.

Nice rant, one day soon I'll write down my Theory of Quantum Music

Dope any rant involving quantum theory I'm down for.

Is this just a tweak/noodle/jam until something happens VS writing a song with an overall master-plan-type-thing?

I tend to do the latter, otherwise I tend to end up with something pleasing yet a bit aimless, meandering and ultimately empty. I need to have a plan and I attack things like I do a painting - Working vague to specific. A sketch, a lay in, values and finally little details.

Working from tweaky noodles upwards works for some people, though.

quantum consciousness wrote:Brain activity correlating with perception apparently occurs too late (150 to 500 msec after impingement on our sense organs) to account for actions initiated or completed within 100 msec!

These include*:
• Preparation of spoken words responding to heard speech (Normal conversation!)

• Analysis of sensory inputs and emotional content

• Choice, planning & execution of voluntary acts

• Hitting a baseball pitched at 90 mph

• etc.

Nonetheless, subjectively (i.e. we feel as though) we perceive and respond to these perceptions consciously.
Consequently, subjective feeling of conscious control of these behaviors is illusion—they are merely: nonconscious reflexive responses

Accordingly, consciousness is epiphenomenal and we
are (as T.H. Huxley said) “conscious automata, helpless spectators”.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/bleeptalk.htm

With me, I do a bit of both. However much of the time my main song idea gets altered due to limitations of my...

* concentration
* playing skills
* cpu speed
* sample library
* RAM
* programs
* synthesizer
* mixing abilities
* monitors
* patience

So really every song is not Plan A, B or C, but Plan X, Y, or Z.
It would be easier if I didn't have those limitations but it's still
possible to make good songs and feel good about them.

the studio is a physical extension of your Self. only when you realize this, can you get out of your own way, and let creativity happen.



.....

yes sensei.

sensei.....i'd say more like acid

I gotta say, sometimes I work both ways. Sometimes I get an idea for a beat or a tune in my head (usually either in the shower or while walking) and then have to translate it to my production. Other times, I just sit down at the computer, at the keyboard, or with my bass guitar, and just noodle a bit and see if something just comes out.

Probably the best tracks that I wrote tho come out the second way. Or start with the first process and suddenly some inspiration veers it off its original path.

decklyn wrote:Someone brought up the concept of top down vs bottom up at school in a presentation on nano technology. In top down, you build a machine that builds another smaller machine that builds another smaller until you're at the nano level. In bottom up you manipulate things at the atomic level until you've built that which you have intended.

Sounds like 'bootstrapping':

As an allusion to lifting oneself up by one's own bootstraps, the term bootstrapping means using a special process to perform a task that one would be unable to do in general.

* Bootstrapping (computing), starting a computer or building complex tools after building simple tools that allow for the creation of the more complex tools. Shortened to booting to describe the process of starting up a computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping

Personally (from a creative side rather than mixdown mastering)..
I try to allow the tune to evolve on its own.
most of the time I hear a sample or rhythm and use that as a starting point. Or I just hear a snare or Kick, stick it in the sequencer and see where it takes me.
The best tunes tend to make themselves i find.

If I have a finished tune in my head from listening to a loop it will never turn out like that because im always going to be restricted by production abilities at the time.

So without sounding gay, Im definately a bottom up.

I find I usually make the best tracks when I have a 'concept' for the tune rather than an idea of what it should sound like...

Hard to explain though.

Occasionally I get so frustrated with a tune thats not going anywhere that I just select all the notes and hit "randomise".

It generally leaves you with a load of gibberish, but surprisingly often you can pluck out one riff or sound and build on it.

I think I'm a bottum up sort of guy. I never really know how the track will end up when I start.
I just put atoms togther, a bit like making a baby.

<b>Have sex</b> (Turn on computer, load up software)

<b>Wait 9 months</b> (ideas grow, basslines wobble, baby starts kicking, finished in about 1 month)

<b>Give birth</b> (Finished track played out in Club)

i just got into producing, and usually do things at random

sometimes just click about and keep it that way if its hot, some things i want a certain way but my experience and knowledge isnt letting me so you cant do the stuff you want all the time, so i dont think about a tune when i start

Escapee Planes wrote: <b>Have sex</b> (Turn on computer, load up software)

Terrifying glance into the future right here.

gravious wrote:

Escapee Planes wrote: <b>Have sex</b> (Turn on computer, load up software)

Terrifying glance into the future right here.

Truly

in response to original post; most of the time i start from blank although when i do have some kind of melody and masterplan i always go off on a tangent